Many Japanese trees are small because they are dwarfed by the Japanese art of bonsai. This art consists in training and growing dwarf trees as symbols of the Japanese ideals of the immersion of the self in nature. This ideal also finds expression in their poetry, the tea ceremony and flower arranging. The tiny trees express quietness, beauty of shape …

Fascinating hats are worn in Royal enclosures at Ascot and other horse races during Ladies’ Day when women come out in force and the venue turns into a fashion ramp. History shows that popularity of hats and kerchiefs dates back to early 1800s. Outrageous hats, generally made out of a bowl of fruits, were sported by singer/actress Carmen Miranda in …

The word amphibia comes from two Greek words: amphi meaning of both kinds and bios meaning life. Amphibia are a class of vertebrate (back-bones) animals that can live both in water and on land. They are descended from fishes that lived more than 300 million years ago. The first amphibia to crawl out of the water were heavily built, and …

Nerve endings are what makes us feel ticklish. Our feet have the most nerve endings – so they’re the most ticklish of all!

The word ‘crustacean’ comes from the Latin crusta meaning a hard covering shell or crust. Apart from crabs, lobsters and shrimps, there are thousands of different crustaceans. They live in the sea, except for a few species such as the common woodlouse. Crustaceans differ greatly in size and shape. Many of them pass through remarkable changes of form (metamorphoses) before …

A female cat can be in season five times a year. It is only during these periods, which last about five days each, that the cat is fertile. Her mating call is a shrill caterwauling. The domestic cat, as a rule, goes in season for the first time between the ages of seven and twelve months. Her pregnancy generally lasts …

Daily soaps are a take-off from opera shows in South America, which were sponsored by soap manufacturers. They were then known as ‘soap operas’ – these inspired daily television shows, known as ‘daily soaps’ .

The roundness of an egg allows pressure to be applied from the outside which would break it if applied from the inside. Thus a helpless chick is protected until the moment it needs to break out from its shell. It can then do this with the gentlest of tapping. Eggs are hatched by an adult bird sitting on them, and …

Randall Rose and Stacy Wood, professors of marketing in the university of South Carolina, who have done research on the popularity of reality TV, say that the viewers’ desire to blend fact with fantasy can be a reason for the popularity of this genre of TV. The show’s popularity persists because the viewing experience is inherently different from that of …

The hill girls, Mildred and Patty, wrote “Good Morning to You” in 1893. The song was not a big hit until someone changed the words at a birthday party. Nobody knows who actually manipulated the words. But for birthdays, not many but four words is the all you need: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!“